March 2011

15 March 2011

THE CLASSROOM, published in 2010 features an essay "Connecting Learning and Learning Environments". Through the article, Peter Brown establishes a precedent for intertwining education and design, then illustrates ideas shaping the next generations of school design based on shifts that are occurring within the current educational landscape. The book is available from WASMUTH. This post is number six in a series of seven.

In the coming years, the integration of technology has the potential create fundamental changes in the relationship between learning and learning environments. For the first time in history, at a large scale, technology allows for students in the classroom to connect with resources outside of the classroom. Additionally, resources that have historically only been available in the classroom are available anytime and any place, and lessons can be extended to occur outside of class time. Access to online course work allows content to be customized for individual student abilities, preferences, and pace. Real-time assessments inform teachers of daily progress of students.

The availability of content resources in and out of class time provides opportunities for significant changes in activities during the day as well as the utilization of spaces within a school facility. In Sweden, Kunskapsskolan (or Knowledge School) provides a highly customized education for students in the middle years through high school. Entering students set educational goals, which start at the desired end result and are factored into yearly goals, semester goals, weekly goals and daily goals. The core content is delivered through a digital portal, allowing students to move through the curriculum at their own pace to meet individual goals.

At the beginning of each week, students create a weekly plan that organizes individual educational goals and related time schedules. Each student in the school has a personalized, individualized schedule based on their individual goals. Teachers post weekly lecture schedules and work with students both formally and informally. In additional to traditional classroom and lecture spaces, the schools incorporate many places for individual and small group work. Corridors are eliminated in favor of formal and informal work areas. At any given time, students are completely utilizing the building, either in formal teaching spaces or informal learning groupings, teams of students working together to solve problems. At Kunskapsskolan, the digital portal allows a structure for course work that provides a great freedom in choosing how time is utilized, spaces are utilized, and teacher-student relationships are enhanced.

While technology is changing quickly, there are known elements that can be used in planning: We know that technology is continually faster and smaller. Small technology has much less of a spatial impact on the design of facilities than operational impact. The human component of education also provides known elements that can be used in design. Students need places for academic work and activity work and for working in groups and individually. There are some elements in planning for technology that are not known and that need flexibility for change as educational models transform: What does it mean to be networked to resources outside of classrooms; How to manage content and educational relationships that occur outside of the classroom; How to structure time and space to accommodate individual student pace; How to individualize content for student ability and interest.

THE CLASSROOM, published in 2010 features an essay "Connecting Learning and Learning Environments". Through the article, Peter Brown establishes a precedent for intertwining education and design, then illustrates ideas shaping the next generations of school design based on shifts that are occurring within the current educational landscape. The book is available from WASMUTH. This post is number five in a series of seven.

A significant shift has occurred in U.S. schools over the last decade: National laws requiring public schools to demonstrate that all students reach a base-line standard of knowledge. Traditionally, school performance models based on bell curves have been successful for easy-to-teach students, but less so for hard-to-teach students that are at the extremities of the curve­ – those students requiring acceleration or remediation. With the goal of reaching every student, schools are making strategic adjustments in many program and operational areas: evaluating curriculum, the organization of students into academic teams, the organization of time during the school day or week, working with educational and/or community partners, and in many cases increasing educational specialists working in small groups or one-on-one with students.

Increasingly, at the high school level, schools are organizing into small learning communities: students and teachers organized by small teams to better meet the academic and social needs of students. Small learning communities provide greater autonomy to the academic teams and often focus curriculum on topics or themes that are engaging to students. Academic teams generally offer a collection of spaces types that accommodate lectures, working in small groups, working on projects, and making presentations.

Schools are also looking at organizing time to allow large blocks of time to engage into the learning process. Barnette Magnet School, a K-8 magnet school in Fairbanks, Alaska, operates a program with both grade-level and multiage classes. In morning sessions, core teachers have three-hour blocks of uninterrupted time to cover core subjects in grade-level classes. In the afternoon, the school transforms into a multigrade exploratory program, offering courses that focus on student interest: music, dance, language, reading, science, robotics, plants, animals, and sports. The afternoon time slots also allow for acceleration and remediation in academic subjects. At the end of the week, students have the opportunity for “Friday in Fairbanks,” an unstructured time to allow students to take courses or lessons outside of the school – music, athletics, arts, or other community-based programs. The daily transformation from 16 classes of 24 students in the morning to approximately 32 classes of 12 students in the afternoon requires a facility strategy that can flex daily with the program. As school organizations look at strategies to reach the learning needs of all students, facility strategies are evolving to support the program.

06 March 2011

One of the greatest experiences of working with schools is having a front row seat in seeing how children create when given open ended possibilities. I've been following Wesley Prep in Dallas for over six years now, and we've been working together over the last year in transforming their 40 year old buildings into 21st century learning environments for a hands-on, child centered, project-based academic program. One play area for the 4th, 5th, and 6th graders is across campus over a footbridge in a clearing next to a natural creek. Students have dubbed this clearing "The Bamboo Forest"

The Bamboo Forest is an open ended play space. Here students gather bamboo, create villages, societies, barter systems, spaces, and ornament. Traditions are passed year-by-year from one group to the next, organically shifting as new students come and older students graduate.

A couple of weeks ago, after a project meeting, I went to the Bamboo Forest to see this year's creations. And was in awe of the complexity and sophistication of the creations.

The clearing by the creek was a village, populated with a half-dozen bamboo structures, each with its own structural concept, each the creation of a team of builders (space builders, town builders, idea builders). One in particular stood out--a large structure that began as a defined space under the canopy of four mature trees. The tree trunks were linked together by bamboo walls, and bamboo ceilings further defined the spaces inside the structure. Stepping inside, the space was subdivided into four rooms: I imagined a foyer, ante room, and two private areas. The spaces were organic, like a transparent Richard Serra sculpture.

Then another layer of information had been added. Some walls had rails with pine cones dotting the structure, and others were woven with found materials: shimmering tape from a cassette reel, colorful plastic bags, ribbons and twine.

It's really informative to see HOW children create when given the opportunity to think outside of traditional boundaries. So often creative work in schools is defined by a 18" x 24" sheet of paper, a 4' x 6' bulletin board, or a letter sized ruled pad. Here students have a clearing, a forest with bamboo, and with the purity of a bird building a nest and the elegance of a spider spinning a web, the thinkers at Wesley Prep navigate NEW and BIG frontiers. With three years of the Bamboo Forest experience, I'll be interested in seeing what frontiers will challenge and excite the graduates of Wesley Prep.

02 March 2011

The innovative Collegiate School is the nation's first Middle School Charter on a College Campus. The student-paced curriculum offers a blended mix of on-line activities, direct instruction, and group work. A partnership with Apple brings an iPad to each student to organize curriculum, assessment, and schedule. The school is receiving much attention from the state legislature, the Florida Department of Education, and US congressmen from the district. Last year at this time we were working with the college and school leadership to envision how spaces, technology, and schedules work together to create an educational model that allows students to meet individual goals at an individual pace. And it's so great to see the school in operation. Phase two implementation is in the works, more posts to come!